by A. L. Knorr
As they rolled the dolly and its burden across the foyer, the floorboard squeaked under Allan's foot.
"I really need to fix that board," he grunted.
"Don't you dare," replied Jordan. "I love that board. I used to listen for it at night when I was a little girl. When I heard the squeak, I knew you were home."
Allan smiled as they backed the dolly wheels up to the next set of steps. "As you wish."
With a rhythm of pulling and lifting, they got the wooden box up the grand staircase and down the hall to Allan's favorite room - his war room.
This room was the man cave to end all man caves, made even better by the two dormers and window seats that overlooked the backyard. A low bookshelf crammed with a multitude of books about WWI and WWII lined the back wall. Model ships, tanks and planes, which Allan had lovingly built himself, graced the bookshelf’s top. Wooden shelves along the other walls artfully displayed boots, helmets, weapons, journals, old maps, goggles, gas masks and every other imaginable thing one would expect to see in a war museum.
In the back corner was a model landscape that Allan used to recreate battles while reading the details from a memoir or history book. Allan sometimes invited Cal up to play–since Cal was fond of history too—and the two of them would debate, sometimes loudly, over the merits of Patton's battle strategy, or how WWII was really won.
They laid the crate down on the floor and Allan took a kerchief out of his back pocket to mop his face. "You're not even sweating," he said to his daughter.
Jordan grabbed the small pry-bar from her father's desk and handed it to him. "I work out. You should try it sometime."
Allan stuck his tongue out and Jordan laughed. “If only your constituents could see you now.”
Nothing turned Allan into a child like adding an item to his collection. Allan took the bar and worked the crate lid off, the nails protesting as they came loose from the wood. Cornstarch peanuts and styrofoam blocks hid everything that was inside except for a rounded piece of tarnished metal. Allan pulled at the styrofoam and brushed away the peanuts, letting them fly out of the crate and scatter across the floor like popcorn.
Jordan gasped. "It's some kind of gun?"
Allan brushed away enough of the packing material to reveal the broad, circular magazine at the top of the weapon, the long barrel and the wooden butt end.
"What kind of gun is this? It looks way too big and awkward for a person to carry," Jordan said, helping remove more of the peanuts.
Allan leaned back on his haunches and opened his palms to present his new artifact. "This, my darling daughter, is an original British WWI Lewis Aircraft Gun Modified for WWII Home Guard with 97-Round Drum Magazine." He slapped his hands on his thighs with satisfaction and whistled. "Ain't she a beauty?"
"You bought a machine gun?"
A look of false insult crossed his face. His voice was reverent. "Noooooooo, this is not just a machine gun…"
Jordan made beckoning motions with the fingers of both hands as though taunting an opponent to box. "Okay, let me have it…"
"This Lewis gun represents the first model of machine gun ever fired from an aircraft-"
"In the year…"
"On June 7-"
"Of course you know the day…"
"1912, U.S. Captain Charles Chandler fired this prototype," Allan tapped all five fingertips on the gun's magazine, "from the foot-bar of a Wright Model B Flyer." Allan pointed at one of the small model airplanes on a shelf that was full of them. “Note exhibit A.”
Jordan spied the envelope taped to the inside wall of the wooden crate and removed it as her father told her more of the artifact’s history. She opened the printed pages and scanned the text. "’Rebuilt as totally inert and never to be made operational again,’" she read aloud.
"Of course," Allan said and looked comically regretful. "Can you imagine a State Senator buying a functional antique machine gun? If I was ever found out, it would be a PR nightmare."
Jordan cocked a brow in surprise. "You can buy functional machine guns?"
"Not legally." Allan scratched his chin. "Shoulda been a history prof," he mumbled. "No one cares what a history prof buys."
"Told ya." Jordan went back to reading. "’Often employed for balloon-busting, loaded with incendiary ammunition designed to ignite the hydrogen inside the gasbags of German Zeppelins, other airships and Drache barrage balloons.’" She handed her father the article and patted him on the shoulder as she got to her feet. "Nice one, Dad. Have fun setting it up."
Allan clapped his hands together and rubbed them with glee. "Sure you don't want to help your old man polish it?"
Jordan laughed. "I'll contribute by bringing you some rags and a glass of iced tea." She headed for the door, but stopped and turned back. "By the way, Maria stopped by this morning."
Allan looked up at his daughter. "Really?" He smiled at the mention of Jordan's nanny of years past. "How is she? Why didn't she stick around? I would like to have seen her, too."
Jordan crossed her arms over her chest. "Actually, it was really weird. She came to say goodbye; she's moving back to Belize."
Allan's smile faded. "For good? And she didn't want to see me?"
"I don't think it was a matter of want. It seemed like she was in a rush and-" Jordan paused, wondering if she should express her suspicions out loud.
"What?" he pressed.
"Well, it sort of seemed like she wanted to get out of here before you came back. You guys haven't had a tiff, have you?"
"A tiff?" He dropped his chin, his face incredulous. "We've never fought. Even while she lived here all those years, raising you." He blinked. "Well, now I'm just hurt."
"I'm wondering if it has something to do with this…" Jordan fished the locket out of her pocket and dangled it in front of her dad.
When Allan's eyes fell on the silver locket, his face froze in shock. He took the locket and held it in his palm. "Where did you get this?"
"Maria gave it to me." Jordan didn't like the look on her father's face. "You recognize it?"
Allan ran a hand through his hair and rubbed the back of his neck. "Of course. Your mother bought this locket on our honeymoon from an antique store in Paris. She went crazy as soon as she saw it; she loved the craftsmanship. She had always planned to get our photos done up tiny so she could put them inside."
"On top of the painting?" Jordan raised an eyebrow. "Or did she just change her mind?"
"What painting?" Allan looked confused. "What do you mean?"
"Over the portrait inside."
Allan opened the locket and stared down at the portrait of Jaclyn with disbelief.
"Dad?" Jordan watched Allan's complexion turn waxy. "Are you okay?"
"This is impossible," Allan said. "This locket was always empty." He looked up at his daughter. "When she bought it, it was blank inside."
Jordan frowned. "I guess she changed her mind about what she wanted inside."
Allan rubbed a hand across his brow in agitation. "This makes no sense." Allan fumbled in his pocket for his phone. He scrolled through his contacts with shaking fingers.
"If you're calling Maria, I already tried. Her phone has been disconnected."
Allan pressed dial anyway and held the phone to his ear. After hearing the recording, he hung up. "What did she say when she gave it to you, Jordy?” Allan asked, a sharp line between his brows. “I mean her exact words."
"Dad, you're scaring me."
Allan shook his head. "You don't need to be scared," he said. But Jordan thought the fact that he looked like he'd seen a ghost betrayed the opposite. "Just tell me what she said."
"She didn't say anything about it, Dad. She wouldn't even let me open it while she was still here. She told me to wait until after she left. Why do you think she would do that?"
Allan closed the locket and rubbed a thumb over the silver, thinking. "It explains why she didn't want to cross paths with me. I wish she would have come to me with this, instead of giving it to
you."
"Why?"
When Allan didn't answer right away, Jordan fought back her frustration. She knelt down next to him and took the locket from his hand. "Dad, talk to me. You're always trying to protect me, but I'm grown up now. It hurts that you don't trust me. We are all that is left of the Kacy family. If we're not on the same side, then we're alone."
Allan looked at his daughter and couldn't help but marvel at how much she had matured in the last few years. "When did you get so wise?" he mused. When Jordan didn't answer, he took a breath and went on. "When your mother bought this locket, it was blank inside. I promise you that."
"When was the last time you saw it?" The hair on Jordan's arms stood up at the look on her father's face.
Allan paused, then ploughed forward. "Your mother was wearing it when she disappeared the first time.”
CHAPTER SIX
Jordan couldn't believe her ears. She shook her head. "What do you mean ‘the first time’? There was another time when she vanished?" She gripped the locket so tightly that the clasp bit into the flesh of her thumb.
Allan sighed. "Yes."
Jordan waited for him to go on; when he didn't, she grabbed his bicep. "Dad, this is huge. Why didn't you ever tell me?"
"You didn't need to know," Allan answered. "You weren't even alive at the time and it's not important anymore."
Jordan's face flushed with heat. "Bullshit!" she snapped. "Bullshit, ‘it's not important’. Bullshit, I didn't ‘need to know’."
"Jordy-" Allan said and put a hand over hers in an effort to placate her.
"This is a paradigm shift, dad!" She pulled her hand away, her voice rising. "How could you leave this out? In a missing persons case, this is-" she struggled for the right words. "This is critical information. It changes everything." She put her hands over her face and shook her head. "You're unbelievable," she said through her fingers. "Really, I'm just-" she took her hands away, the imprint of her fingers still on her cheeks, "disgusted."
Allan's brow furrowed. "This is why I haven't told you, Jordy. You get too involved emotionally-"
"She's my MOTHER!" Jordan yelled.
"She LEFT!" Allan yelled back.
Jordan's eyes narrowed. "How dare you," she seethed. "How dare you decide what I get to know about my own family? How dare you deny me the facts, especially when you have watched me hunt so hard for them over the years?" Her voice grew hard and Allan began to wilt. "How dare you keep things from me that could help me make sense of the tragedy of this family? Do you realize how selfish you've been?"
Allan's phone rang and he jumped and scrambled to answer it; like it was a lifeline, thrown from a ship to a drowning man. "Hello, hello?"
Frustrated air whistled from between Jordan's teeth. She took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes, willing herself to be patient.
Allan got up off the floor and turned his back to Jordan. "Marcus, I'm here. What is it?"
Jordan rolled her eyes heavenward and put her glasses back on. Marcus was Allan's secretary and he never called on weekends unless it was an emergency. "Thanks, Marcus," Jordan grumbled, "nice timing."
"Well, did you call him?" Allan was saying, then a pause. "I realize that, but-" More dead air. "No, you're right. Of course. I'll go in person. Today-"
Jordan threw her hands up and got to her feet. She crossed her arms and waited for her father to get off the phone.
"Yes, alright. I'm on my way," Allan finished. He hung up and turned to face his daughter, sheepishly. "I have to go."
"Of course you do."
"Don't treat me like I asked for this, Jordy," Allan said, retrieving his jacket from where he'd draped it—over the chair that Ernest King had sat in while he was Chief of Naval Operations during WWII. "We'll talk when I get back. It's probably a good idea for you to cool off, anyway."
Jordan clenched her jaw. "Allan," she said, quietly.
Her father turned back to her in surprise. She'd never called him by his name.
"When you get back, we're going to sit down and you're going to tell me everything." She moved closer to him and glared into his face. Allan took a step back from the woman who used to be his little princess. "Every. Little. Thing. I mean it," Jordan blinked up at him through her glasses. She pushed her specs up her nose. "You and I are all we have left. We have each other, that's it. Unless you want to lose me too, you’ll spill it all and you’ll do it tonight."
Allan paled and the column of his throat moved as he swallowed. "Even if it makes you hate her?"
It was Jordan's turn to pause and consider something new. Allan could see the cogs turning in his daughter's brain. She heard him. She processed it. She rejected the notion. "That's impossible." Jordan’s answer was resolute.
Allan touched Jordan's cheek and nodded tightly. He turned and left the room and as he was descending the wide staircase to the foyer, he said under his breath, "That’s how I felt, too."
CHAPTER SEVEN
Jordan listened from her father's war room as the Land Rover's engine turned over and the vehicle drove away. She put her hands to her cheeks where anger had made them hot and red. Her heart was still pounding with indignation. Maybe Allan was right; she needed to cool off before she could sit and listen to what he had to say without blowing a fuse. She needed the oak. Her oak and the swing Allan had made for her when she was fifteen. Before then, it had been a tire swing, but she felt too old for the tire swing, so Allan had surprised her, on her birthday, with an elegant wooden bench for two. On that swinging bench, she had sat with her grandparents before they'd passed away. She'd sat with her dad and wiled away hot Sunday afternoons. She'd sat with Maria on humid evenings, listening to the crickets. But most of all, she'd sat there by herself—reading, studying, or just thinking.
Jordan took the narrow servants’ stairs down to the kitchen and went out through the back door. The estate used to be twelve hundred acres, but Allan had long ago severed the agricultural land and sold it off to developers as the suburbs crept further west, leaving them fifty acres of private land. The backyard was sprawling and green. Cal kept the shrubs manicured, the roses trained and a small garden cultivated for Jordan to pick vegetables and herbs. But the property's claim to fame was the towering, centuries-old oaks. Jordan thought of them as gentle giants and guardians. Her oak was in the middle of the back lawn; its trunk so thick it would require five men to grab hands, just to wrap all the way around it. With its fat, gnarling limbs sprawled wide and the canopy overhead thick and healthy, the oak was a majestic sight. The wooden swing looked like a child's toy, dangling from the branches.
Jordan crossed the lawn in her bare feet, locket in hand and sat on the bench. Letting it sway, she tucked her feet up under her and tilted her head back. The sky was barely visible through the thick canopy of the 500-year-old tree. Her oak had survived lightning, flooding, pestilence and the hacking off of huge limbs. Whatever it experienced, it always came back stronger and more beautiful.
Jordan knew about the intelligence of plants and trees. Water drawn up through the tree’s roots vibrated at a frequency proven to be restorative to humans. Being close enough to a tree of this age and strength helped her take on the same frequency. It was like hitting her reboot button, triggering healing. After sitting near her giant and feeling the calm that came over her, Jordan could finally believe it.
She again took her mother's locket out of her pocket and rubbed her thumb over its silver face. She frowned and clenched the locket tight. Is it vibrating? Jordan jerked upright on the bench, setting it swaying. She stared down at the locket, aghast. It is vibrating!
"What the hell?!" Jordan got to her feet, holding the locket away from her. There was a sound, very faint, like the buzzing from a hive of bees. The locket was humming. Jordan clamped a hand over her mouth. It’s impossible. I’m imagining it. She put the locket down on the bench, pushed her glasses up on her nose and stared at it. The sound of the vibration grew louder and the locket buzzed against the wood. It began to jum
p and jiggle. "What is going on?" Jordan cried, her hands flying to her cheeks. Every nerve was struck, every hair on her body erect.
A louder buzzing sound, like electricity sparking, made her look up into the oak's branches. Jordan gave a cry and took a step backward, tripping and landing on her tailbone in the grass. She didn't even feel the pain. A bright web of sparks flashed between the branches of the oak, snapping and humming like a power cable. Lines of them swept up and into the limbs, one after the other, dissipating into the thick leaves. Flickering and popping, some of the lines made a small ring that did not dissipate, but held steady, buzzing loudly. Connecting two of the oak's limbs, it made an enclosed circle. The shape shrank and then grew and in the center…
Jordan got to her feet and adjusted her glasses with trembling fingers. She squinted, her eyes unable to make sense of what she was seeing. In the center, she thought she could see more branches, but they were at odd angles, criss-crossing over the hole. Those branches were clearly not part of her oak tree.
A scream tore from Jordan's throat as something flew through the ring of sparks at a terrifying speed, crashing into the oak with a loud snap of breaking branches. The humming lines of electricity vanished and the oak went silent. A dark mass remained in the crotch of the trunk, propped against a thick limb.
Jordan's chest rose and fell rapidly, her heart hammered in her chest and her body cried out for oxygen. She craned her neck up to look at the oak and whatever had hit it. She screamed again when something swung down from the mass and dangled before hanging still. The ‘something’ that dangled had fingers. Her heart pounding like she'd just sprinted for her life, Jordan took a few steps closer to the tree. Bending her head back until her neck spasmed, she strained her eyes, trying to glimpse what she could. Her vision was terrible, but with her glasses, she could see as well as most people. It is a hand; I’m not imagining it. And the hand is attached to a forearm, which has to be attached to a human. Right?
Jordan's brain felt scrambled. She was at a complete and utter loss; she didn’t know what to do next and paralysis rammed her in the chest. A man had flown out of nowhere and hit her oak tree – possibly hard enough to kill him. Sweat gathered in the hollow of her back and trickled down her spine. She had to do something. What if he is still alive? He’ll be injured and if he dies because I’m standing here like a fungus… But where the hell did he come from? She shook her head and steeled herself. If he’s alive, I can ask him. She put a hand out and clutched the rung of the wooden ladder her father had nailed into the tree over fifteen years ago—a ladder which helped a young girl who was fond of climbing get up into the tree. She prayed the rungs would still hold and began to climb.